CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

“Boys, we officially have the legacy of the Renegade Soul’s happening right now.” – Rider

 

 

 

 

As it turned out being an outlaw wasn’t favorable to the state when they were handing over kids to brand new foster/adopted parents. Archie had told him the holdup was the CPS were looking into Preacher’s past and his two D&D’s.  More than a handful of years ago he’d gotten those drunk and disorderly charges, spent a couple nights in the drunk tank to sober up before they let him go, no real prison time but it was coming back to bite him in the ass. Worse, it was another day spent for Ruby knowing her nephew wasn’t at home with her. She was being strong, said she didn’t blame him, it was one of those shitty state hold-ups, she was being too understanding, he blamed himself.

If there was one thing Preacher hated and that was failing.

He was doing it spectacularly as it goes. So much for producing the marriage certificate being the magical fix, it was his name that was making them question about giving the boy to Ruby. That kind of civil servants had a special brand of condescension that set Preacher’s teeth on edge, they saw in black and white, didn’t matter he had been an upstanding (outlaw) or that he’d never (been caught) done anything illegal in recent years. It was there in black and white on his police record two D&D’s so it made him the scum of the earth. He could plead his case, he supposed, if it came to it, he was still holding out hope for Archie’s persuasive nature to go to work and earn the money the club paid him by pulling some lawyer mojo out of his ass and win this for them.

They’d had two relatively quiet days, they’d heard from the sheriff, Dwayne was charged with manslaughter after singing like a canary under questioning and was being kept in pre-trial detention until a date could be set. Rather than being angry for the lesser charge Ruby had nodded at Charlie, told him thanks for letting her know and then got on with life. He didn’t know whether she was due for a full-blown crack or she truly was alright.

She’d been to church earlier, he’d dropped her off outside, now he was at the club about to walk inside, he sat on his bike for a long time, lost in his own head.

Struck with a sense of personal inadequacy, Preacher ran a hand around the back of his head and sighed up to the approaching night sky. Protecting people was what he'd always done well. Until he didn't. And now it seemed he was fucking up left and right and because of his slightly colourful illegal past, Ruby might lose the kid to the system for good if they proved he wasn’t a good stepfather material. How much worse could they deem him up against the junkie father he did have? Jesus, the shit was stacking up. The right thing to do as far as he could reckon was to step away from her, to have her disassociate from him, why did that make his chest ache?

Motherfucker, couldn't one thing just go right for once? He craned his head back, the thing feeling like it weighed a small country hanging on his thick neck, the night sky swallowing him whole as each emerging star appeared to twinkle their judgment down on Preacher.

So incredibly vast and still he felt like an ant. His lungs inhaled the cooler air, summer was coming, it would be hotter than Satan’s ballsack soon, not that he gave a shit about the seasons only that it was difficult to ride his hog in the thick snow.

He liked the summer, liked the cookouts with the club and other chapters, they'd arrive in a few months’ time for the fiftieth anniversary of the Renegade Souls MC, but he couldn’t think of any of that right now while this hung over him.

He thought of a lot of things standing with his smoke, the smoke he shouldn't be having, that was two now. Tension rode his spine; the latest drama was a doozy and he really fucking wanted to help Ruby.

Because you want to keep her and fuck her and never stop.

It wasn't just that.

Not only that.

He wanted to love her like she’d never been loved before, until she was so fucking drunk on the love he was giving her she wouldn’t doubt a second of what he felt for her.

Preacher recognized something in Ruby that was missing in himself, like he’d taken one look at her and saw the same empty hollowness he had in his chest, she was a complex girl, that was more than evident, had secrets a mile long, sometimes he hadn't even known if she was telling him the truth, they'd turned the corner on that.

"You gonna step in and help any time soon, ass-clown?" He asked the sky, not expecting the stars to part and his big brother's face to look down on him, but knowing Shane it was still a possibility, he always did like showboating. "It's the least you can fucking do, bro, since you went and got yourself killed, don't you think?" Pain lanced under his ribcage, he took a long drag on his smoke, flicking it into the dirt with his thumb, he needed that poison in his lungs like he needed a hole in the head. “Bro. I could do with a hand. This is so far out of my wheelhouse I’m screwing it up for her.”

Anyone with PTSD will tell you it’s not the moments when you’re having an episode it’s all the times before it, worrying when it’s coming, that slight white noise in the ears, was that a flashback about to happen? Those days when every little thing just winds you up causing the biggest moods, was that an episode about to happen? Preacher worried every day that he would come unhinged and wouldn’t have a say in the matter as he cowered on the floor, or god forbid beat the fuck out of some unsuspecting person because he thought he was an insurgent come to kill him.

So, on one hand, he was doing all he could to help bring the kid home, but then was it the better outcome if he wasn’t in the picture if one day he lost his shit around him?

As he’d learned, never decide a life decision on what that fucker PTSD was whispering in its musty voice, it was always wrong, and Preacher wouldn’t cave to the possibility of what ifs, not when he could have something good, something real. Keep going forward, bro. He could almost hear Shane in his ear. Keep going forward.

He did, by walking through the main entrance to the clubhouse, he was in time for the meeting, taking his seat next to Texas. “Rider not here yet?” He asked the money man who seemed distracted, his eyes flipped up. “Hm? Ah, yeah, seems so, haven’t seen him all day.”

“How we looking for the pool?”

Texas drummed his fingers on the table. “Nothing is happening yet. It looks like it will outlive us all.” Preacher grinned. Seemed like.

Only then Rider burst through the door, his stride strong, eyes distracted, gazes around the full table lifted to see the blanched color on their president’s face, his hair out of its usual bun, disheveled like Rider had been dragged through the desert feet first. Preacher looked around at his brothers who grinned and nodded to each other.

His disheveled state was either sex or -----

“Zara’s pregnant.” He blurted before he’d even reached his chair. “With a baby.” He qualified as though it needed adding. Snickers and cheers passed around the closed room.

“Daddy Prez.”

“Hot damn, the boy isn’t shooting blanks!” Another chimed in.

En masse the brothers all congratulated Rider who looked like he was gonna hurl all over the sacred table. Preacher was one of the last to slap him on the shoulder as Rider sat his ass down, green around the cheekbones. “I got no clue how it happened,” he said dazed making every male voice laugh. Preacher cracked a grin and rested both hands on the table, eyeballing his president. “Well, how it happens is, when a man puts his pee-pee inside a woman’s special garden and shoots her full of man confetti----”

“Oh, fuck you, Preach.” Rider laughed scrubbing a hand down his face. Preacher dodged out of the way of the flying gavel, retaking his seat at the other end of the table. “I know how it happened, but fuck. A kid. Zara is sick as a dog again, so let’s wrap this meeting up quick so I can get home to her. And you jackasses can quit your swearing around my kid while we're at it.” He warned with a steely glare.

This shit was too good not to follow on with. “That’s some smart kid if it can hear us from the womb, Prez. I mean, it has me for an uncle, so the brains are there already.”

“Yeah, the Preacher can teach the baby Prez his AB--what comes after that’s?” smirked Lawless. “Don’t worry, Rider, the kid has me. We'll get him into Princeton no probs.”

“That is not comforting, Law.” Deadpanned the father to be.

“When we’ve all dropped our uteruses, there’s more pressing matters.” Snake talked over everyone. “Like who the fuck won the pool?”

“What pool?” A scowling Rider asked.

“Well, bossman.” Preacher took one for the team since everyone had clamped their gums knowing how volatile their president was. Prepared for a fast getaway. “We laid some money out for when you finally realized Z-girl was knocked up with the future ruler.”

Everyone nodded. Brothers, all for one, one for all. Rider couldn’t fight them all. Probably not.

The man in question sat forward, resting his laced fingers on the table, taking the time to streak his blue eyes over everyone.

He was either mentally digging graves for everyone, or his news was still fogging the bossman's brain because it took him an age to speak. “You knew?” blue eyes narrowed like a snake ready to snap. But then he smirked.  “You piss-brains could have given me a heads up!”

“No swearing in front of our nephew, Prez!” fired back Grinder. “You do know no more bump n grind for you, right? He’s gonna be a little cockblocker.”

“May your dick rest in peace.”

Having kids meant no more spontaneous sex in the kitchen rutting like animals? What the hell. No way? Preacher’s forehead puckered as the banter passed from one member to the other, he tuned out. Was this shit true? Fuck. He wasn’t changing his mind on getting Sebastian home with him and Ruby, and that kid was not new-born, he could talk and everything … a much bigger cockblocker.

Nannies. They’d need a team of nannies, he decided firmly.